Something more

Lately I can't get this song out of my head. The chorus repeats " I just want it to be over. I just want it to be over." This song plays in my mind nearly all day at work.

I'm not in my ideal job, quite far from it, actually. In truth, I am doing what I never wanted to do. When I was a little girl I occaisionally went to work with my mom. Her dream was to be an executive secretary to the chief executive of an organization. She is very proud that she achieved her dream. I'm very proud of her too. I wish I could achieve mine.

I saw her buzzing all over the building from person to person and office to office. She was living her dream. I was very, very, bored. I never wanted to work in an office. I never wanted to be in the same place doing the same thing with the same people day after day, year after year. Pushing paper around, answering phones, attending meetings, repeating the same procedures over and over was the last thing I wanted to do. Okay, anything involving math and science and blood & guts was the very last thing I wanted to do. But coming in a very close "next to last" was working in such an office job.

Cut to me now, almost 30 years old. I am doing what I never wanted to do. I am an office drone. I have been for almost 7 years. For 7 years of precious life, I have been doing work that I never wanted to do. Ever. How can this be?

When I graduated college in 2000, it be came clear that my mother and I couldn't live together as 2 independent, stubborn adults. So I had to go on my own and support myself. Thus started the compromises. I took a crappy telemarketing job to keep a roof over my head. When I couldn't take that toxic work environment I abruptly quit. Then I found a job where I currently work. It was only supposed to be a brief stepping stone. It was a way to keep my apartment and save for a car so I could moonlight in tv production jobs. That's just what I did.

Unfortunately, 2 financially and emotionally devistating back to back car accidents threw me off course. I've yet to recover financially and I have abandoned the tv prodction career. There was a mourning period I had to go through. I had everything invested in that career. God revealed to me that that it just wasn't going to work out. Unfortunately He hasn't yet revealed what I am supposed to do instead. I have always known what I don't want to do for a living, but never had a crystal clear vision of what I absolutely do want to do.

I wake up every morning and thank God for blessing me to see that day. But then I go to work wishing for that day to be over. My mind is a juke box that plays Sugarland's "Something More" and "Settling"and Keyshia Cole's " I just want it to be over." I am developing an exit strategy. I'm still trying to dig out of this financial hole so I can get a vehicle again so I can attend grad school and have more career options.

Life is hard. For the past 4 years I haven't been living, just existing. So here I am. I feel it's the end of the line at my job. I have to constantly motivate myself to "just make it out the door this morning. Then "just make it to lunch." Then "just make it to 5 o'clock, you're almost home." On Monday morning, I'm counting down to Friday evening. This is no way to live!

Unfullilled potential catches up with you after a while. It becomes a burden. There was much expected of me throughout my childhood. I overcame some personal and family challenges to make it through school and on to college. I remember the day I left for college. I was so excited and hopeful. I was squeezed in the back of our raggedy old Volvo packed full of my stuff. I had my walkman playing Republica's "Ready to Go". I was ready to take on new challenges. I was confident that I would succeed. Sometimes I think I can hear my 18 year old self pleading "What are you doing? We hate this. You are supposed to be more than this!"

I can't let life's challenges beat me into submission. I can't just curl up into a corner and wait for it all to be over. I owe it to that 18 year old to fight my way out of this. I can. I will. It begins now.